Xiàngtái shǒumò 象臺首末
The Xiàng-tái Affair from Beginning to End by 胡知柔 (撰)
About the work
A five-juàn dossier compiled by Hú Zhīróu 胡知柔 (fl. 1256) at Bǎoyòu 4 (1256) on the case of his father Hú Mèngyù 胡夢昱 (zì Jìzhāo 季昭, hào Zhúlín yúyǐn 竹林愚隱), of Jíshuǐ 吉水, jìnshì of Jiādìng dīngchǒu (= Jiādìng 10, 1217). Hú Mèngyù held office as Dàlǐ pínɡ-shì 大理評事 and was demoted and exiled to die in Xiàngzhōu 象州 for memorializing on the affair of Jìwáng 濟王 (Zhào Hóng 趙竑, the heir-apparent forced to commit suicide in 1225 in the succession crisis at Lǐzōng’s accession). He was posthumously rehabilitated under Bǎoqìng 1 (1225) with the title Yuánwàiláng 員外郎 and posthumously canonized Gāngjiǎn 剛簡 in Xiánchún 3 (1267). Zhīróu in 1256 compiled his father’s surviving memorials and other writings; the work was later supplemented with the canonization-debate (shìyì 諡議), exchange-poetry, prefaces, and colophons by various hands. The catalog meta gives only “fl. 1256” — that is the date of compilation in Zhīróu’s hand, but the Sìkù note that the received text contains poems and prose by Yuán and Míng writers shows that the Bǎoyòu manuscript was substantially augmented after the family papers passed to descendants. The work is therefore an extreme test-case of the dynastic-rehabilitation zhuànjì in which the original family-archive core is buried under accreted commemorative material.
Tiyao
Xiàngtái shǒumò in five juàn, edited by Hú Zhīróu of the Sòng, recounting the entire course of his father Mèngyù’s persecution. Mèngyù, courtesy name Jìzhāo, sobriquet Zhúlín yúyǐn, was a man of Jíshuǐ; he took the jìnshì in Jiādìng dīngchǒu (1217) and held office as Dàlǐ píngshì. For memorializing on the Jìwáng affair he was demoted and died in Xiàngzhōu. In Bǎoqìng 1 (1225) he was posthumously raised to Yuánwàiláng; in Xiánchún 3 (1267) he was canonized Gāngjiǎn. In Bǎoyòu 4 (1256) Zhīróu edited his memorials and other writings, later adding the canonization debate and various exchange-poems and colophons; the impeachment documents are also included. The arrangement is rather without method: in the first juàn, after the sealed memorial and the letter to Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠, there is suddenly inserted Lǐ Zhīxiào’s 李知孝 and Liáng Chéngdà’s 梁成大 two impeachment memorials, plus Xú Xuān’s 徐瑄 letter on Mèngyù’s behalf, and below that Mèngyù’s elegy for his dead younger brother, and below that the draft document of restoration of office. Juàn 2 begins with the announcement of his official rehabilitation, then suddenly inserts four memorials by Mèngyù himself, then attaches five zàn on Mèngyù’s Shuǐshí tú by Zhào Wén 趙文 and others. Juàn 3 begins with nineteen exchange-poems by various hands, then suddenly inserts Mèngyù’s two own poems answering Wáng Lúxī 王盧溪’s rhymes, plus another reply, then eight more poems by other hands, then suddenly Mèngyù’s own Róngyīn tú lyric, then eighteen more poems by other hands. Juàn 4 contains funeral writings, sacrificial pieces, and colophons. Juàn 5 contains the rehabilitation drafts and the canonization debate, which logically should have come at the front; appended at the end are six portrait inscriptions, edited separately from the Shuǐshí tú zàn; and the colophons to his chūshēn yìnzhǐ (degree-paper) are edited separately from the colophons on his sealed memorial. The whole is jumbled and disorderly. The book was composed under Sòng Lǐzōng — how, then, can it contain poetry and prose of Yuán and Míng writers? This must be later interpolation by descendants and not Zhīróu’s original. Yet the work survives because of Mèngyù’s moral standing, and because the Sòngshǐ contains no biography of him with what little is here being not free of gaps, we now place it in the catalogue to show our own gesture of commemoration. Reverently presented in the first month of Qiánlóng 44 (1779). Chief Editors: Jì Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.
Abstract
The work is the family dossier of the Jìwáng affair (1224–1225): the disputed succession at Lǐzōng’s accession, in which the chancellor Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠 set aside the heir-apparent Zhào Hóng 趙竑 (then Jìwáng), who shortly after committed suicide. Hú Mèngyù was among the few officials who memorialized openly on the wrongness of the affair, and he was punished with exile and death. The 1256 family compilation by his son Hú Zhīróu — undertaken thirty-one years after Mèngyù’s death and on the heels of the gradual posthumous restoration of Mèngyù’s reputation — is the principal documentary record of Mèngyù’s life and of the Jìwáng episode from the perspective of those who opposed the chancellor’s manoeuvre. The Sìkù editors’ criticism of the disorderly arrangement is well-founded; their identification of post-Sòng Yuán and Míng material as later interpolation is also correct, and reflects a long descent through the Hú-family’s surviving lineage. Some modern scholars treat the Xiàngtái shǒumò together with the Lǐ Chángshēng zòuyì and similar Sòng-end documentary collections as evidence of the Jìwáng historiographical tradition of opposition to Shǐ Míyuǎn. The 1256 date used here is the compilation date in Zhīróu’s hand; the terminus ad quem of the received text is much later (early Míng).
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language translation located. On the Jì-wáng affair and its historiography, see Richard L. Davis, Court and Family in Sung China, 960–1279 (Duke UP, 1986), and his “Historiography as Politics in Yang Wei-chen’s ‘Polemic on Legitimate Succession’,” T’oung Pao 69 (1983). The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類二·名人之屬.
Other points of interest
The Sòngshǐ contains no biography of Hú Mèngyù; this work is therefore the principal documentary basis for any reconstruction of his career. The Sìkù editors’ deliberate inclusion of the work despite its disorder, “to show our own gesture of commemoration” (yǐ shì biǎozhāng zhī yì 以示表章之義), is itself an interesting Qīng editorial gesture toward Sòng moral exemplars.
Links
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.